Fever dreams of Bird, throwing up meals on the regular, trying desperately to feel something, anything, from hemp and kombucha... Rehoming the dog is a fucking nightmare mentally... I keep having moments where I question doing it, and then he will do something I can't handle again, and I'm reminded why it's completely necessary at this point. I just don't know what to do about him, and it's making me anxious. I need someone to take him away from me and help me with him. There is no one yet.
Dreams of Bird... Why? What emotion did I feel? Ashamed. Hurt...
The moment when he told me I was stupid plays in my head sometimes. IDK why I even told him what I was going through - he and Lolly are the only humans I ever told. I told this blog, as I do everything, but no one else. He called me stupid, because he cared.
Flashes of that moment and the look on his face the night I was with Gerard and he facetimed, come to me in random moments. They haunt me. I can see his face and hear his voice so clearly. Even though both times I was drunk... It's like an image you've looked at so many times you could almost recreate it. I remember how he looked, sounded, and how I felt. I felt shocked. I felt taken aback by the thought that he might actually care, because I didn't think he did. I thought we were playing the whole time.
My brain will flash to those two moments and say, "See this? You hurt him here. And here. And yes, you were hurting too, but those moments are what made him pull away in the end. If you hadn't acted like a stupid whore, you could have been with him." But he was the whore also... And he never told me flat out what he wanted or expected of me. And I don't think I ever really wanted to be with him. I don't know if I feel like he was a good person deep down like I did with all the others. I don't know if he is. Maybe he was like Trip in "Virgin Suicides..." That seems like a Bird move...
I read back over old blog entries, and I always chose my husband over everyone else. I think Bird was an option I had at one point, but I kept saying no. Not directly, but I was. I wrote that I was. It's weird how time can confuse us. I'm actually quite glad I wrote about all of my transgressions in life. They are painful to read sometimes, and I get the urge to delete the ones that are the most unsavory, but it helps me to organize myself.
I always chose the man I had passion for, even when a safer option was there. And Bird was not the safest option...
I feel like he could have loved me. I think he did a little. I remember Jen's birthday when he acted aloof all night and then called and texted so much after we left that she was like, "What is happening?" He demanded to talk to me and called her phone to accomplish it. IDK what he wanted or expected that night. She was so shocked, and I was not. I think the fact that I wasn't was telling.
It's so weird the relationship we had; I never know what to even make of it. He opened up to me so many times. He let me in over and over, and I was too fucked up to see that it was happening. Or maybe it wasn't, and I'm wrong. Or maybe he was the too fucked up one. I know he was a mess, and I know just because he was quicker and louder and more precise than I was at executing things, doesn't mean we weren't on the same page sometimes.
I wish I could just ask him. I want to ask him. I want to text him and just ask, "Did you ever genuinely care about me?" Not in an accusatory way. Not because I think the answer will fill some void or fix something or tell me what my worth is, or give me closure. I'm just curious. I'm curious if he ever even cared that I left.
He played the game so much, that I always just thought we were playing, but I don't think he was. And I think once I knew all the rules, the game was already over... Once I benched the other player, he had already switched teams on me.
He told me I was special so many times - maybe he was being honest, or maybe he was full of shit. I don't think I'll ever get to know, and that sucks. I know from all the others... All the others that I got to a level of caring with, I got a direct quote from.
Chevy said our timing was off.
Ry said you're not the girl for me.
Bogs said you are and always will be special to me.
Adam said I want to take you on a date.
Gerard said all the time that he loved me.
They all told me in a moment of transparency the truth about us. They acknowledged the "us" part, and I'm suddenly crying while I type this, and I'm not sure why... It just hurts.
I just wanted love so badly and still do, and it's so rare to achieve. I have to cling to this hope that he's one of the few people in the world that knew me for me and loved me anyway. He knew me on a very raw level that almost no one else ever got to with me. I want to know that he valued being there, or if he even did.
He did say to me, "I would never be able to trust you," but that doesn't count. He said "I want to marry you," but that felt like a game also.They both make me feel like the game was still going on. They don't feel real. I want the real story of us, and I don't think I will ever get it. He may have been vulnerable all along, but I never thought he was. Only in the two moments that haunt me do I feel like I saw behind the curtain, and both times he was in pain. So if the opposite of love is indifference, and we only feel pain when we care, then clearly he cared. But I want to know in what way and why and how. I wish I had the answer to this.
It makes me want to be crazy and get in my car and drive to Otown to "bump into him." It makes me want to text a period at 4am. Or a "do you want to pick up my shift?" randomly. It makes me want to call and hang up and see if he would reach out. It makes me want to add him on linkedin. As I'm typing this, my heart is racing at just the thought of talking to him. Even if just for a moment.
I remember once he told me an old GF had reached out to him. He dated her like 7 years prior, and she called, and they saw each other and reminisced, and nothing happened, but he felt good about it and was telling me. I get her. I get what she wanted from it. Maybe she was getting married. Maybe she was questioning her path in life like I do sometimes. I wish I could do what she did. I'm jealous.
I wonder if other people experience this - if they think of old loves and moments and what paths they could have taken and wonder how they got to where they are now. Not because I don't think I picked the right path - I think I did. I just wonder what the others would have been like.
It feels like time has passed so quickly. One moment it's 2012, and I'm ending my first marriage, and suddenly it's 2023 and I have a 5 year old, my stepkids are grown, and I've spent a decade with the second man I married . It was a messy first 5 years, but the do-over was good. Do other people think about their life like this??
And I especially wonder if any of the boys I listed here ever think about me. Do they shed a tear or sigh deeply or feel a twinge of pain or guilt when they think of me? Do they ever think of me? What things remind them of me? What places, or songs, or images make then think of Cally. And when they do, what memories come up?
Does Chevy think of the moment I pushed him into the walk-in so that I could tell him he hurt my feelings, the night at the bar I accidentally called him my boyfriend's name and clumsily tried to cover it up, when he heard me on the phone apologizing and started acting crazy, the night I told him I loved him as I left forever, the night we all went to dinner and he didn't spend time with me after, the night I ran through the restaurant and jumped into his arms and he held me against himself, the night we sat near the train tracks feeling with our knees touching, the two texts I sent him wanting to reconnect that he rejected?
Does Ry think about our endless AIM conversations, cuddling during scary movies until I would fall asleep, the candid photos he took of me and the ones of us together he never posted, the evening I sadly asked a question that I already knew the answer to and he pretended to be asleep later, or whatever emotion he felt when he got my wedding invitation that made us never speak again?
Does Bogs think of going to raves and watching the walking dead, the night I was too fucked up and just kept kissing him and people from work saw, the night at TJ's pool when someone warned him to stay away from me, the night I gave him my cheek to kiss and he called me a jerk, or the day I canceled our lunch date and he knew I was leaving?
Does Adam think of the thin pink straps on my shoulders, smoking weed together on his porch, the time I viciously gave him the silent treatment at work for days, hooking up in the back seat of his car in the parking lot of Miller's, the time he came over and complimented my bedroom and I fucked him and he left, the day he told me I was doing too much and I replied he was dead to me, the day he told me he did actually care about me and I told him not to?
Does Gerard think of laying on the pier drunkenly laughing and making out, the moment behind the bar when he said I was giving him the eyes and he took the opportunity to kiss me, the time he called my house and ratted on me to my boyfriend, the nights of chugging wine when we were supposed to be working, the night I spent at his house when I left as soon as he fell asleep, the time I did it again, the evening his car broke down and he missed our date and I didn't give him another chance?
Does Bird think of the two moments I mentioned, the night we drank and laughed on his roof, when I left my purse at his house and had to come back, the nights of punctuation or picking up shifts or DTB's, Jen's birthday, the night with the hotel pool and bottle of white wine when he held me and put gas in my car, the night we made out in his car after work in the rain, the night I sat outside on the phone with him intoxicatedly saying sexy things until he said he wanted to marry me, the night I called him and he wouldn't come rescue me and I said it had to be over?
What do they feel, if anything, about these moments that I live with? Do they ever even think of them? Do they have other moments I have long ago forgotten? What emotions do they live with because I was there? How do they feel about me now? About us? Do I ever even cross their minds?
I hope that I do. I hope they carry a piece of me, because I loved each of them... I really hope they loved me back.
